The Russian media are full of reports about “alarming” arrests and intimidation in Odesa of members of a newly-formed ‘People’s Council of Bessarabia’ who were merely trying, so the reports say, to defend the rights of the area’s national minorities. The reports certainly are alarming, but for different reasons. Representatives of national minorities in Odesa have condemned the formation of this body as a provocation, deny its claims about discrimination and persecution and challenge its members to identify themselves and explain why they’re seeking a repetition of the scenario in eastern Ukraine..

The Russian reports by, among others, the official TASS news agency, mix up two different although not unrelated stories in order to come up with mass arrests of “citizens of the Odesa oblast who joined together in the People’s Council of Bessarabia.” Concentration on the ‘Council’ is perhaps not surprising given that its website is registered in Russia, its members and foreign supporters like the Bulgarian far-right Ataka party, known for their pro-Russian position.